Topic: Well D*&#, POR-15 Gas Tank Repair is failing at the seams after 8 months.

[dave500]

after the mollases i did the complete por 15 treatment using all the stuff supplied,,i had good hot dry weather an ran an old vacuum with the suction in the filler hole for an hour,,the tank was hot in the sun all day and it was real low humidity,i think that helps a lot?i didnt put fuel in the tank for a month because i didnt have to,it was well cured by then,glass hard going by trying to dig it with a finger nail.

[Ernest T]

I've done two tanks with good results.  I baked both at 200 degrees for several hours after cleaning.

[ekpent]

MMMM YUMMY--I'll take mine medium rare please with a little extra decal on top and a spritz of Ethanol.. 

[dave500]

thats truly excellent,,except now your wife will find out why her roasts taste funny,i think i got a bit of por stuck in my teeth.

[Randy]

Just read the this post..Removing some tank liner from a clients tank... After reading and looking at the pics, I thinks its POR 15.. its gray and the rust got under neath the coating... I was once trying to clean so painted blinds in my kitchen..So I put them in a the bathtub with some Oxi clean..The damn paint came right off...So Im trying Oxi clean in this tank... Its going to sit for the weekend..

[Terry in Australia]

POR-15 is great stuff, and apart from one fail, (and it happened 6 months after I sold the bike, so I don't know what happened to it after the new owner took delivery) and I've had it in my Suzuki GS1000 tank (which developed a leak after I painted it, so it was a real PITA prepping it for POR-15 with relatively fresh paint) for 5 years now, with no issues, and I did "Goldie" and my K1 at the same time 2 years ago, with no problems at all.

When POR-15 first became popular, it was God's gift to motorcycle restorers and the previous "fix", Kreme, became demonised. I find it interesting now that POR-15 has been around for awhile and a couple of new products have come along (Red Kote etc) that POR-15 is slowly becoming the new Kreme. (I've used Kreme, BTW, with excellent results, but I like the POR-15 color better)

The reason that the POR-15 didn't "stick" in your case mate, was that you didn't manage to remove all of the rust before you coated it. I saw that you had a really rusty tank to start with and you did a good job getting rid of most of it, but as Dave has previously mentioned, you need to get it to the point where there is no evidence of rust at all. The surface of the remaining metal might look like a moon scape, but that doesn't matter, the important thing is that it's all metal and there's no rust left.

It wouldn't matter what product you used in this case, they all would have failed. Cheers, Terry.

[kettle738]

I had the same problem with a GT750 tank, a cream coloured liner hanging in shreds.....I should add I hate tank liners......anyway, getting it all out was a nightmare as the filler has an internal 'neck so you can't just reach in to retrieve pieces of liner, they have to be shaken out.....every last little piece.

Once it was all out I cleaned and flushed it and the inside looked spotless.....so I filled it with fuel and it didn't leak. That was two years ago, the liner had been put in as a 'precaution'......total lunacy.

If it leaks, then you have to investigate some sort of sealant, but I've lost count of the times I've read about people installing tank liners to prevent a problem they don't actually have.....why would anyone do that?

These liners are just grief as evidenced by this thread, if it doesn't actually leak stay well away from them........just my opinion of course.

Mick...........kettle738

[dave500]

if you are going to use a liner,,you must really do the prep even better than in the instructions,,over kill the cleaning,,make double sure its dryer than an old beer can in the desert before you apply the product,let the stuff dry and cure longer than the instructions if you can,ive done a few tanks now and never had any trouble,id avoid doing it during your american winters?im a bit spoiled here by having some real hot weather year round.
after stripping this tank

i found a pin hole i got bronzed up at work

i only used a sealer to be sure and its the aussie KB  something coating,half the price of por but the same.

it ended up nice even if it has a fair bit of body filler in it,,we just dont get tanks easy over here so we have to recycle them.

painted by johns custom cycles at currumbin

[Terry in Australia]

I had the same problem with a GT750 tank, a cream coloured liner hanging in shreds.....I should add I hate tank liners......anyway, getting it all out was a nightmare as the filler has an internal 'neck so you can't just reach in to retrieve pieces of liner, they have to be shaken out.....every last little piece.

Once it was all out I cleaned and flushed it and the inside looked spotless.....so I filled it with fuel and it didn't leak. That was two years ago, the liner had been put in as a 'precaution'......total lunacy.

If it leaks, then you have to investigate some sort of sealant, but I've lost count of the times I've read about people installing tank liners to prevent a problem they don't actually have.....why would anyone do that?

These liners are just grief as evidenced by this thread, if it doesn't actually leak stay well away from them........just my opinion of course.

Mick...........kettle738

I can understand your opinion Mick, but there's just no way of being 100% sure that your tank is not going to leak, particulary is there is rust evident in your tank. My GS1000 tank didn't leak when I filled it with water before I painted it, but a month after I painted it, I found a "bubble" under the paint. I then had the "heart in my mouth" experience of having to prep a newly painted tank with products that I wouldn't normally put anywhere near a freshly painted tank.

Over the years that I've been a member here I've seen several similar threads where folks have had their tanks professionally painted, only to find out that they have a potentially disastrous leak, shortly after they've gotten their bikes back on the road. POR-15, if used properly, is cheap insurance against an expensive paint job being destroyed. Cheers, Terry.

[kettle738]

That is a fair point, and if I had a leaking tank I would certainly consider a sealant, and it's equally fair to say that certain tanks have a name for pinholes and rust.......but that wasn't the case with my kettle tank and getting the stuff out was a task I'd hate to repeat, particularly as the paint was perfect so I had to be super carefull while shaking this thing in exactly the right manner.

Your experience of a good tank going bad is the worst case really, but all things considered I would still stand by leaving a non leaking tank free of lining material unless there is reason to suspect it and never applying it just as a precaution.

There are more threads on the hassles caused by this stuff than how to apply it which tells it's own story.

As ever, just my opinion............Mick........kettle738 

[Terry in Australia]

Yep, it's one of those situations where "you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't" Mick, I've got a beautiful F2 tank hanging up in my garage that looked fine before I painted it with super-expensive candy paint, applied new decals, coated it with 2K clear, and after maybe 6 months, lots of bubbles appeared on the left hand side of the tank, and my beautiful paint was trashed.

Luckily for me, a member in Texas sold me a perfect rust-free tank which I didn't need to line, and it didn't leak right up until when I sold the bike several years later. I've still got the old tank as a reminder though...........

[andrewk]

I've had great luck with every major sealer that's sold.  I have had customers that want brand x over brand y, and that's totally fine-  I like Kreem myself, but am working through a quart of red kote (one quart will do a few tanks for sure) right now.

My K3 has 12 year old Kreem in it, and it's holding up great-  It looks like most people here that have had problems have made more than a bit of effort to get things clean, but the stuff will fail if the prep isn't right.  I've no idea what would cause POR to crack at the seams- maybe the application was too thin?

[thrutheframe]

+1 for taking the tank to the radiator shop and having it red koted.

[KRONUS0100]

my local radiator shope wont do it anymore due to insurance regulations, but he said he could sell me the red kote for 30 kit and walk me thru the process, i reckon thats a fair deal.
red kote is what they use to line automotive and marine fuel tanks, self healing puncture resistant stuff.  my dad and gramps had fuel tanks fixed with this stuff on farm equipment.

[dave500]

what sealant was used in our F one eleven fighters?there have been cancer claims from its use,i think the people using it had to work inside the tanks with it?